Blanche’s beau was a young man from Wisconsin. How he got to San Francisco, I’ve yet to discover. But
Harry Griswold Watrous arrived in enough time to meet and marry Blanche in the
parlor of her widowed mother’s home just after New Year’s Day in 1888.

By August of that same year, their first daughter arrived. Named
after her maternal grandmother as well as her own mother, baby Celia’s name was
the exact reversal of her mother’s own full name.

Another daughter followed in March of 1890. Named Clyde—for whom, or for what special purpose or custom I’m
curious to learn—she will henceforth be the instigator of confusion for anyone
researching this Watrous-Bean line. Indeed, I’ve seen documentation already
asserting that this “she” was a “he.”

Yet again, Harry and Blanche announced the arrival of a
daughter on November 27, 1896. And seven years later—almost to the day—the proud
parents were finally able to announce the arrival of a son, whom they promptly
named after his father (Harry) and his paternal grandfather (Orlando Watrous).

This mystery branch of the Bean family—of whom not a word
was mentioned in all the years I’ve known Leona, Bill, and their grand-niece
and grand-nephew—in their own time went on to marry and have children of their
own. I’d like to think this would be a good sign for any hopeful connections of
a genealogical kind—but I can’t for the life of me manage to trace these lines
forward to the current generations. I seem to lose track way back in the early
1900s.

I do know the names of these Watrous children’s spouses, and
even the names of some of their children. Yet, after that point, the trail
seems to turn invisible.

I know oldest daughter Celia married a man in Marin County
named Arthur Morwood Dodge, and that this couple had a daughter named after her
maternal grandmother (the reversal of her mom’s name, to once again revert to Blanche
Celia), and a son named mostly after
his father (with a middle initial “W” for—I’m guessing—his mother’s maiden
name). I can trace this family through the 1930 census, but lose track after
that point. My best hope, at this point, for cousin connecting will be to
obtain Celia’s obituary from a San Ramon area newspaper shortly after her
Christmas day passing in 1977.

I had a bit better luck finding second-born Clyde in census records—mainly for the sad turn of events
in which her marriage to an unknown Mr.
Lane ended in divorce, requiring her to seek
residence for herself and her two daughters back in her parents’ household by
the time of the 1920 census. A later marriage to Albert Edward Harrison brought
her back to the family hometown, where she died in 1976. Once again, a search
through Bay Area newspapers may yield more information for those elusive
distant cousins.

Like her older sister Celia, Elise married a man named
Arthur. She married Arthur Morrell Thompson in 1918, and—as far as I can tell
at this point—was the mother of one child: Wallace Thompson, born October 18,
1919. This child is the one for whom I can find the most recent information.
Once again, if I can get my hands on an obituary, I’ll very possibly find names
of some cousins.

The youngest child of Harry and Blanche—their son Harry Orlando—has proven to be the most difficult to track. While I’ve had no problem
discovering his marriage record, apparently he and his wife divorced only a few
years later. I’ve been able to find some very complimentary articles on Harry
junior’s former wife, but no mention of whether the two had any children. Nor
can I find any mention of a subsequent marriage. Come to think of it, until I
find a copy of his 1971 obituary from a San Mateo County
newspaper, there is little else I can say about the baby of the Watrous family.

Which all goes to show you that, standing between me and
finding a whole passel of cousins—or, perhaps, a more modest amount of
relatives—is nothing but three or four slips of newspaper.

Can it all come down to something as simple as that?

Photographs both from the private collection of Bill Bean; both of unidentified family members--very possibly of some of Bill's cousins. The picture at the top right is dated September 12, 1920, and the woman's facial features seem to resemble those of the young women in the group picture below. No labels on these photographs, other than the one date, leave these as mystery relatives unless a distant cousin shows up to help identify some faces.

Oh, I hadn't even thought of that, Wendy! And I just ran across another in-law with that sort of situation (a man named Evelyn). Wonder if there is any historic list of "This Year's Most Popular Names" like there is now?

Well, I just found the answer to my own question, thanks to a brief visit to Google. This graph shows the popularity of the name Clyde as used for a girl, from 1880 to the present, and this table shows a year-by-year breakdown from 1880 to 1932--the last year in which Clyde was in the top thousand names for girls in the United States. The name peaked in popularity as a girl's name in 1890--the year our Clyde was born--with a rank of 366.

Now there's a name I never would have imagined even making a popularity list! Now I'm wondering what drove the popularity. Mothers didn't have soap operas for inspiration back then. Was Clyde a heroine in some penny dreadful? You don't have to answer that - just wondering out loud.

I wouldn't have known, either, if I hadn't stumbled upon this tidbit. I'm resisting the urge to try to uncover the impetus for the name's popularity, back then, for girls--and what made it shift to the way we know it now: as a boy's name.

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.